CCSS to consider equal coverage for gay couples

May 7th, 2014 (InsideCostaRica.com) Costa Rica’s public health and pension system, CCSS, will consider today granting gay couples coverage on the same terms as heterosexual couples.

The proposal would extend benefits to the gay partner of a working person, as is currently the case for straight couples who live together in a “free union” or are married.

The issue is being considered after CCSS board member José Luis Loría proposed an amendment to paragraph 15 of Article 10 of the Regulations on Health, which currently states that a partner is a “person, man or woman, who lives in a free and stable union and under one roof with someone of the opposite sex.”

Loría proposes to change the paragraph to read that a partner is a “person, man or woman who lives in union and stably under one roof with another of the opposite sex and/or the same sex.”

Loría called the current wording discriminatory and outdated.

The proposal will be addressed today, during the last session of the CCSS board of the current government.